


the rivers of my palms.

by vantas



Series: never argue with rivers. [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron), Galra Keith (Voltron), Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 03:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13286241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vantas/pseuds/vantas
Summary: As the old cliche goes: Everything changed the day the Empire set its sights on Earth. (Or, Shiro is a lost astronaut trying to stop the extinction of mankind. Keith is a runaway from the very same species bringing Armageddon across the universe. Together, they make amends for their past mistakes.)





	the rivers of my palms.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a gift for [snowfinnch](http://snowfinnch.tumblr.com/) as part of the [Sheith Secret Santa](https://sheithsecretsanta.tumblr.com/) exchange on Tumblr, using the prompts "apocalypse au" and "galra keith." This is, uh, probably not quite what was intended with the first of those prompts. But, I hope you're able to enjoy it, anyway! This is totally yet another AU that proceeded to spiral completely and utterly out of control. 
> 
> Special shout-out to [ryoji](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ryoji/pseuds/ryoji) for being the world's most patient beta reader and putting up with my 3am shrieking, while we tried to turn this into something halfway decent.

In one universe, Takashi Shirogane and Keith Kogane have known each other for years. The blistering summer heat seeps into their Garrison issued uniforms, sweat coating the back of their necks as Shiro's most recently awarded medal glistens under the afternoon sun. Keith bumps shoulders with him, the cadet's orange and white uniform clashing terribly with the dark hues assigned to the higher echelons. Together, they walk towards the shuttle that will separate them for over a year.

"This," Shiro says, one arm slung around his companion's shoulder while the other gestures towards the spacecraft. "Is what I'll be flying all the way to Kerberos."

In the background, they can hear the telltale sound of a digital camera. Colleen Holt's bubbly laughter reaches their ears at the same time Katie Holt squawks indignantly at Matthew Holt, victim of yet another practical joke by her older brother's hand. The following year of Shiro's life is going to be interesting, judging by how lively the entire Holt family seems to be — but at this moment, it's just him and Keith.

"You'll do great, Shiro," Keith replies, after a beat. He's smiling at him, leaning into Shiro's touch like a starved man may reach for sustenance. At that moment, Shiro thinks little of it. "I'll miss you," he adds. "Bring me a space rock or something, okay?"

Shiro laughs, moving to slap him in the back none-too-gently, and nods. "Okay."

* * *

In another universe, circumstances are not quite as kind.

* * *

_In another universe_ , Takashi Shirogane finds himself awkwardly accompanying the Holt family as they snap picture after picture. The commander and his wife are, as always, unbelievably kind. Behind them, Matt's particular brand of humor rears its head as his little sister pushes and shoves at him in retaliation. Shiro stands stiff to the side, arms folded behind his back as the sweltering heat seeps into his uniform. It's unbearable, beads of sweat rolling down his skin, but he likes to believe he has enough self-discipline to keep himself from complaining about it in front of his commanding officer and his family.

Colleen snaps a couple more pictures of Katie and Matt with Bae Bae before she glances over to him, her smile giving way to a worried frown as he examines his face. "Are you sure you're alright, Takashi?" she asks, tone so gentle it nearly makes him want to sit down and pour all his worries out to her. He can see why Sam and Matt speak so fondly of her. "I wish you would have invited someone to see you off."

Shiro shakes his head at her. "I'm alright, ma'am," he replies, a polite smile plastered on his face. He thinks of dusty photographs featuring people he hardly knew, and the pulverized bones of the one relative who gave everything to make sure he grew up loved and cared for. "I already said my goodbyes yesterday," he adds, and it's not quite a lie. Colleen's brows furrow as he quickly follows his statement up with a laugh, his right arm gesturing at the sun above them. "Besides— I wouldn't subject anyone to this heat."

"Well, yes..." she begins, looking at him uncertainly. "But—"

She doesn't get to finish her statement. Katie Holt (thankfully) opens her mouth at that precise moment, voice pitched high and nigh impossible to ignore in the way only teenagers can achieve. " _Mom_ ," she cuts in, from her spot between her father and brother. "Come on! Let's take a picture with all four of us, please?"

Colleen still looks like she wants to say something, but whatever it is — she never follows up on it. Instead, she gives him an apologetic look, carefully pushing the camera into his hands and showing him how to snap a picture when he says he doesn't know how to use it. The resulting photograph is slightly blurry and noticeably crooked, but it's alright. The Holts love it either way.

He wishes he could say he didn't feel jealous of them. Having someone to see you off, to say they'll _miss_ you, seems like such a privilege.

But like many times before, he pushes the feeling away. It's bad to be a bother.

* * *

Being a bother, however, doesn't seem to be quite as bad as getting abducted by a hostile alien race.

He doesn't know how long it's been since he was captured. The days all blur together when there is no strict routine for one to follow, his captors being just as likely to leave the prisoners in their cells for what seems like an eternity, as they are to drag them off to subject them to cruel and inhumane treatments. Shiro has lost count of the amount of times he's been pushed into the arena, the blistering lights burning into his retinas while the crowd's rhythmic chanting threatens to suffocate him. He has lost count of the amount of times he's been pushed down onto a gurney, automations holding his limbs down while someone administers an anesthetic to drain the fight out of him.

He wishes he knew where they sent Commander Holt and Matt off to, the only indicators of their continued existence laying in eavesdropped conversations about work camps and undiscovered species. _The druids_ , the guards once said, _will be most interested in dissecting yet another primitive race._ Shiro tries not to think of the phantom pain of a missing limb. He tries not to think of long hours spent sedated, the whirring of machinery around him as they cut through flesh, bone, ligaments — until there is nothing there. On the good days, when the guards only bother the prisoners long enough to flash their teeth in a mockery of a smile, taunts slipping through their lips at the same time they slip food through the door's chute, Shiro thinks he can outlast this. He genuinely believes there is an end in sight.

On the bad days, he has his doubts.

Today is a bad day.

He puts up a fight as they pin his limbs down, the soldiers cold and uncaring as they go on about their jobs. There is a medic in the room, and it is at him that Shiro directs his yelling. He screams and begs and pleads to know what they plan to do to him, but all he gets is silence in return. The galra did not care for his complaints when they took his arm away, and he hardly thinks they'll bother to listen to him now as rip out yet another piece of him. Nausea is already settling into his gut, the familiar sensation of fear slithering down his throat and coiling around his heart. He's cold. He's shaking. But, as he has learned time and time again, there is no escape once the galra have gotten their hands on you. They are a race of parasitic imperialists; they conquer planets as they please, enslaving the native species and taking their resources until the world is no longer inhabitable.

For them, desecrating the bodies of those they have captured is their sacred right.

And, once again, Shiro is moments away from being subjected to that gross violation of his autonomy.

There's a sharp pinprick against his left bicep as one of the soldiers administrates an anesthetic — but not _too_ much. The medic wants him to feel this, to feel whatever they're about to do to him, and that by itself makes Shiro's mounting hysteria all the much worse. The world is beginning to go blurry at the edges, reality feeling like it's been steeped in mud, seconds before there is a flurry of movement all around him.

Someone is talking to him.

 _Someone_ is slapping him in the face.

The medic is leaning over him, and for a moment, all Shiro can truly focus on is the jackhammering of his own heart and the rushing of his own blood in his ears. " _Wake up_ ," the medic tells him, while Shiro stares back uncomprehending. "Zarkon has located the Blue Lion of Voltron on your planet Earth. They have already begun to search for it, so you much hurry and find it before he does."

Distantly, he thinks this session's anesthetic must have some real _oomph_ behind it. There's no way this is anything but a hallucination, and yet—

(He feels something great and ancient call out to him. Something beyond what the human mind is capable of understanding.

 _"—Paladin_."

And so, he goes.)

Ulaz (or so the medic introduces himself as) speaks to him of various things while he helps Shiro off the gurney. He speaks of disenchantment with the Empire, of rebellion and of seeking refuge far away from Zarkon's central command. He speaks to him of an organization known as the Blade of Marmora, urging him to follow the coordinates he has uploaded to his prosthetic, and most importantly — he speaks of a plan.

"I planted a bomb to cover your escape," Ulaz says, and though Shiro has spent what feels like a lifetime around the galra, he can hardly decipher the expression on his supposed savior's face. "Head for the escape pods. You'll find one with open doors. Go _now_ before we are discovered."

He doesn't have to be told twice.

Ulaz runs off in the opposite direction, leaving Shiro to stumble his way through the ship by himself. His gait is lopsided and uncoordinated, every step a struggle to keep himself upright. A part of him, the one that's more often than not seething with anger he refuses to show, wonders why Ulaz couldn't have opted to forgo the anesthetic altogether. After all — it's not as if he would have felt it _less_ by going without it. Quite the opposite, really. But there's nothing to be done at this point. Not now, when he's pressed against a wall, counting footsteps as the sentries move down the hallway.

For a long, anxiety inducing moment, it seems as if everything is going well.

Until it suddenly isn't.

Everything around him gives a sudden _lurch_ as Shiro is brought down to his hands and knees, an explosion rocking through the ship. He doesn't know if he was too slow or if the bomb's timer was too fast, but he does know that the sentries are now keenly aware of his location. One of them shouts for him to stop, as if anyone within their right mind would _listen_ , while Shiro forces himself to his feet.

_He's so close._

The escape pod is within his view now. Freedom feels more like an attainable reality than a faraway fantasy.  His legs ache. His heart is stuck in his throat. But he can't stop now. Not when all he has to do now is take a sharp turn, and then—

Something tackles him.

Something cold and metallic and most definitely _galran_.

Shiro struggles against the sentry's grip, shouting in frustration as they both fall over, right past the escape pod's open doors. From the corner of his vision, he sees something clad in purples and grays dart past them.

Three separate, distinct bodies hit the floor.

* * *

In _this_ universe, Takashi Shirogane and Keith Kogane meet while escaping from a galran battlecruiser.

* * *

The sentry lays in a corner, thoroughly destroyed. Sparks fly from its exposed entrails; wires, gears, and a multitude of components Shiro doesn't nearly understand enough to accurately name. Under normal circumstances, he would feel relieved to know that the sentry is no longer a threat. The knowledge that it's now incapable of literally turning this ship around should be a balm to soothe his soul — but it isn't.

Not with the knife currently pressed against his throat.

There is a young man pinning him down to the floor. Smaller, lither, but most definitely _galra_. Yellow eyes stare down at him, pupils blown wide with adrenaline. "Who are you?"

In a way, it would be funny if he survived his time in the arena only to die now, throat slit in the middle of a pod that was meant to get him to (relative) safety. Shiro tries to steady his breathing, unable to find his voice as pure panic tries to force its way back into his system. The galra on top of him, he reminds himself, is a prisoner. Not a soldier, not one of the druids, but a _prisoner_. The purple and gray rags are indicative of that much. Shiro has spent too much time getting acquainted with what little protection they offer to think anyone within their right mind would willingly wear them.

"I'm a prisoner," he ends up saying, once his unwitting companion increases the pressure of the knife against his throat. "Just like you."

"A prisoner," the galra sneers, voice filled with disbelief. "And how did you escape? Sendak let you out?"

"One of the medics set me free," he responds, in spite of the incredulity and sarcasm being directed his way. "Please, you have to believe me. He said I needed to find something called _Voltron_ before Zarkon does." Part of him knows he should be careful. He could end up revealing too much to the wrong person, after all. But right now, he is desperate and willing to do whatever it takes to save his own life.

And it works.

The galra pulls away suddenly, as if struck. "Voltron?"

" _Yes,_ " Shiro breathes, relieved at both the recognition in the galra's voice and at the fact there's no longer a knife against his throat. It's a win-win. "Do you know what it is? The medic, he— He said something about a _Blue Lion._ That Zarkon's looking for it in my world."

"Voltron is a weapon," the galra says, picking himself up from the ground in one smooth movement. The knife disappears from his hand, slipped into something wrapped around his waist, and Shiro is startled to discover that _fanny packs_ exist all the way out here in space. "If Zarkon gets his hands on it, the universe will be lost for sure," he adds, and then he holds a hand out to Shiro. "Your planet. What's it called?"

Shiro considers his options for a moment. Considers the hand held out to him, the cold bite of the escape pod's floor against his back — and he makes a choice.

He takes the galra's hand. It's small. Calloused. Slots in perfectly against his own.

"Earth," he replies, as he's pulled up to his feet. "My name is Shiro."

Something flickers across the galra's expression, far too quickly for Shiro to properly identify. "Never heard of it," he says, shifting his arm in order to turn his grasp on Shiro's arm into a handshake. "My name's Keith, and I'm going to help you find the Blue Lion."

* * *

Their journey, once they have created enough distance between themselves and the battlecruiser, is a relatively peaceful one. They take turns sleeping, trying to conserve their energies to make up for the lack of rations within the pod. The coordinates are preprogrammed, meaning neither of them has to try and map out their current location in the galaxy, but it doesn't mean they don't spend their time staring out the windows.

Once upon a time, Shiro would have found the experience exhilarating. He may very well be the first human being to see _these_ particular constellations — but the wonder has worn off after being held captive for so long. The only thing he yearns for now is the warmth of the summer heat against his skin, blue skies above him and green grass beneath his feet. The only thing he yearns for now is _home_.

He spares a glance at his companion, enraptured by the slow rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps. He had introduced himself as _Keith_. A human name for a decidedly alien individual, and though Shiro had pointed it out, all he had gotten in return was a half-hearted shrug. _Maybe_ , Keith had told him, _humans and galra have similar taste in names_.

But with names like _Zarkon_ and _Sendak_ and _Haxus_ swirling around in his mind, nobody could blame Shiro for being skeptical.

He finds himself spacing out, watching his companion for a lack of anything better to do. He's meant to stay awake in order to monitor the pod's control panel and watch out for any potential enemies, but so far, there has been nothing. And even if there _was_ something showing up, Shiro's somewhat unsure of what he's supposed to do in response. It's not like he understands whatever written language the galra use, the implant behind his ear serving well to translate everything he hears, but doing little for anything he _sees_.

It's with this thought in mind that, almost as if on cue, the control panel begins to blare its klaxon alarms.

Keith is jolting out of his sleep in an instant, his hair a mess as he glances around in alarm. Shiro feels sorry for him because, considering the way every ghastly _shriek_ makes it feel like his eardrums are seconds away from bursting, this has got to be one hell of a way to wake up.

"What's going on?!" he yells, trying to make himself heard over the alarm.

Keith is already up on his feet by the time he finishes that sentence, sprinting towards the pod's dashboard. "I don't know!" he yells back, scanning the different displays, buttons and monitors with the experienced gaze of someone who knows exactly what they're doing. Shiro finds it very admirable. "It says we're—"

And then Keith cuts himself off. Shiro casts him a worried glance, making his way closer despite the increase in volume as he does. He can feel fear gripping at his heart again, already thinking of all the different ways his newfound companion could have meant to finish that sentence.

Nearly all of them are bad.

"It says we're _what_? Did they find us, Keith?"

"No," Keith says, oddly breathless. If Shiro weren't standing next to him, he doubts he would have heard him at all. "Shiro, look up."

When he does, his eyes land on Earth.

* * *

From a purely theoretical standpoint, Shiro knew what Ulaz meant when he said Zarkon had already begun to search for the Blue Lion.

(But _knowing_ and _believing_ are two different things.)

* * *

Having no option but to crash onto Earth is horrifying.

The sight that greets them when they exit the pod, even more so.

Shiro understood, from the moment he laid his eyes on the smog covered skies and the destroyed satellites, that this wouldn't be the same Earth he remembers. Everything is in tatters. He catches glimpses of decimated cities and galra-fabricated structures as they get closer to the ground, and the impact from the crash isn't nearly as jarring as the fact that his home is _gone_. Even though he's escaped, the galra have irreversibly altered his life to the point where there's no going back. Not to his previous life, working at the Galaxy Garrison and dreaming of the stars, and certainly not to any sort of normalcy.

He thinks he must look absolutely distraught as they extract themselves from the wrecked pod, scrambling to leave the area before the galra find them, because Keith looks like he wants to reach out to him. He keeps glancing at Shiro's face, his eyebrows knit in concern, before he settles for sticking close to him as they pick a direction and _run_. "Shiro," he says, "I'm sorry."

Keith, he supposes, would know better than most what the galra are capable of.

They duck into a rusty, damaged pick-up truck when a fighter flies too close to their location for comfort, the desert a large expanse before them. They wait until the ship's red lights pass before daring to relax, both of them collapsing in a graceless, exhausted heap against the musty old seating.

"I think we're in the clear," Shiro notes, if only because he needs verbal confirmation of it before he dares allow himself to unwind.

It takes a couple of seconds for Keith to respond, only the outline of his body visible against the disgusting surface of the passenger's seat. "... I think so, too," he murmurs, turning to look at him. "Do you know where we are right now?"

 _No_ , is his knee-jerk reaction — one that he suppresses. When he takes the time to think, however, he finds himself vaguely recognizing the ruins he spotted on their way down. It's not a sure thing. He's pretty certain he could be wrong, but somehow he feels as if he's on the right track. "We're close to the Galaxy Garrison," he replies, and only remembers that Keith isn't from around here when he sees him knit his eyebrows in confusion. "It's a space exploration program. I work— I used to work there, before all of _this_."

Keith hums in understanding. Shiro doesn't need to elaborate what he means when he says _before._ Not when there is physical proof annexed to his body.

But they're free now.

They're stuck in the middle of hostile territory, surrounded by the remains of Shiro's home, but they're free now.

That should mean something.

They remain silent for a moment, almost as if processing the fact that they're no longer prisoners of the Galra Empire. Not for the first time, Shiro finds himself wondering what Keith could have done to get himself imprisoned by his own kind — but it's not a thought he spends too much time entertaining. Even among mankind, there are ( _were_ ) people who got locked up for committing a crime. It's not too strange to think the galra could simply opt to throw their own among the rest of their captives as punishment for their wrongdoings. It sounds entirely like something Zarkon would do; double cross him once, and be subjected to the worst kind of torture.

"Okay," Keith sighs, snapping him out of his own thoughts. "We... need to find the Blue Lion before Zarkon does. Do you have any idea where it could be?"

Shiro shakes his head, digging his fingers into the faux-leather tapestry. It's cold at night, and they won't survive much longer without proper shelter and sustenance. "No," he admits, and he _feels_ more than he sees Keith's disappointed gaze. "If someone on Earth found it, they kept quiet about it. I never knew about it until now."

Keith clicks his tongue, obviously frustrated. "Your world is split up by massive bodies of water," he grits out. "If it's not on _this_ stretch of land, what are we going to do?"

That's the million dollar question, right there. Shiro closes his eyes, considering the benefits of comforting his companion with some well-meaning optimism. Somewhere in the distance, he thinks he hears a coyote howling.

"I don't know."

He's never been good at staying optimistic, anyway.

* * *

Their progress is stagnating nearly two weeks after their arrival on Earth.

They are both tired and frustrated, their ability to stay hopeful wavering with each passing day. But what they lack in hope, they make up in sheer, bullheaded _determination_. They take care to venture out only when the sun begins to disappear over the horizon, using the dim lighting to avoid getting spotted by any of the patrolling galra fighters. Shiro puts his graduation requisites for good use, digging around the dusty crooks and crannies of his brain in order to remember which part of the desert wildlife was edible and which was most definitely _not_. They avoid getting sick from food poisoning while filling their bellies, which is good, but Shiro's pretty sure he's going to be stuck with the taste of scorpion in his mouth for eons to come.

Assuming they don't get killed by the galra before finding the Blue Lion, anyway.

Upon Keith's suggestion, they've taken to using his knife to carve markings into any sort of landmark they can find. Caves, cacti, and even the abandoned structures they find every now and then. Shiro tries to avoid thinking too deeply about how these places ended up abandoned in the first place, the telltale scorch marks and people shaped carbon imprints leaving little to the imagination. When that turns out to be a futile endeavor, however, he ends up trying to distract himself from the reality set out in front of him.

His head hurts, just a little.

"Keith," Shiro says, sticking close to his companion ( _his friend_ , he thinks) as they delve deeper into the building. There's a staircase somewhere to their right, only visible to Shiro's eyes due to the trace amount of light bouncing off the ceramic tiles decorating the steps. Neither of them have actually complained about the lack of visibility, but he gets the feeling Keith might have better vision in the dark than he does.

It'd explain why he's able to immediately swivel around, yellow eyes landing on Shiro's face. There's a faint sort of mirror-like quality to his pupils at times like these, and Shiro's struck by how odd it is to see a galra with a visible iris and pupil within the sclera.  It doesn't look bad on him, though. Just different.

"Shiro?" Keith asks, keeping his voice low as if to avoid any unwanted attention. "What's wrong?"

Truth to be told, he hadn't really given much thought about what he wanted to say. At the time, all he knew was that he needed a distraction. Something to keep his mind away from the fact that someone once lived in this place, and now they're dead.

"You..." he begins, lamely, extending the single syllable for as long as he can without making this _weird_. His throat feels sticky and dry. It's not a good combination.

"I...?" Keith repeats, mimicking his tone. "If you're not feeling okay, we can sit down to rest. It should still be a couple more varga before it'll be too dangerous to keep going."

But Shiro shakes his head. Sitting down while surrounded by evidence of someone's untimely death is not something he wants to do, even if he has no idea how to properly convey this to Keith. "I'm feeling fine," he lies. "But I realized I never asked you how you already knew about Voltron."

For a moment, Keith freezes up. _For a moment_ , Shiro wonders if he's crossed over some line, preparing himself for the apologies he will have to offer to make up for this snafu. But the moment passes, and the tension in Keith's shoulders is receding. Shiro watches as those yellow eyes dart to the left, a glint of white teeth visible as Keith's tongue darts out to lick his lips. "All galra know about Voltron," he offers, morosely, as an explanation. "They say it used to belong to Zarkon, before the alteans stole it and hid it away from him."

Shiro feels his eyes widen. "Is it true? Did this... Voltron belong to Zarkon?"

In response, Keith scoffs, crossing his arms across his chest. "Of course not. My mom—" he stops, abruptly and in a way that makes Shiro think he revealed more than intended, before clearing his throat. "... Those are just lies the Empire created to justify themselves. Voltron never belonged to the galra. It belonged to _everyone_."

"But I thought," he responds, brows knitting together as he purposely ignores Keith's slip of the tongue. "You said _Voltron_ was a weapon."

"It is," Keith agrees. "But it's not a weapon for the galra to conquer the universe."

There is an odd detachment with which Keith utters the word _galra_. Briefly, Shiro wonders if it's intentional. He wonders if Keith even notices he's doing it. But, as with many inquiries of this nature, it's pointless for him to spend too long thinking about it. In the end, he won't ask. The risk of unintentionally alienating ( _hah_ ) his only ally is too great to even consider, the fear of being alone keeping him in line.

Nonetheless, Keith seems to bounce back from the conversation rather quickly. He turns on his heel, giving the room they're currently situated in one last, cursory glance before inclining his head towards the staircase. "I don't think there's anything else we can look at here," he says, while Shiro's brain unhelpfully points out the people shaped imprints are _plenty_ to look at. "Let's go upstairs."

Shiro nods, though not without casting the staircase a wary glance, wondering about the stability of something that (for all intents and purposes) got _nuked._ "Good idea. I'll go first. You stay close to me."

Behind him, he can hear Keith huff out a laugh. " _Dude_ ," Keith laughs, softly, and it's a bit jarring to hear an alien use the word _dude_. He wonders what he's actually saying, and why the implant chose to translate it this way. "Did you forget I'm the one with the knife?"

He did not.

But Keith isn't the one with the so-called _enhancement_.

(He does not, in fact, point this out.

He isn't even sure if Keith knows what he's done to survive, and part of him selfishly wants to keep it that way.)

They step upstairs to find something akin to a bedroom.

Light flows freely into the room, thanks to the gigantic hole that spans part of the wall and ceiling. Debris litters the floor, chunks of concrete haphazardly strewn across the ground along with dust, ash, and broken pieces of furniture. The bed has been stripped of its mattress, leaving only the bed frame behind. For a moment, he wonders if it's possible for an ion canon to vaporize only the mattress and nothing more.

And then the moment passes, and he realizes what an absurd notion that is. There is a more logical explanation for this, and it's staring him right in the face.

"Someone's been here," Keith comments, as if voicing Shiro's thoughts. He then lifts a clawed hand, trailing a path with his index finger. "The debris got pushed to the side in some spots, see?"

As he follows Keith's finger across the room, he begins to notice what he means. It's subtle, considering the amount of sand that's steadily built up in the room, but there seems to be a narrow stretch of ground that the debris doesn't touch. It's not a big path, only spanning from the staircase to the bed frame and some other miscellaneous surviving pieces of furniture, but it's definitely enough for someone to delicately step through to avoid stabbing their feet with something sharp and pointy. Curiously, the path also stretches from the bed to the hole in the wall — and he wonders what could have happened there.

"Do you think..." he begins, trying not to sound _too_ hopeful. "This could have been humans?"

Keith pauses, almost uncertainly, as he lowers his arm to his side. After a beat, he nods. "The galra wouldn't have bothered to come up here," he tells him, all too quietly. "Not unless they wanted to make sure everyone is dead."

 _Dead_. There is a lump that forms in Shiro's throat at the word, carbon imprints of the deceased coming to mind, and he forces himself to swallow around it. Lifting his left hand up, he jerks his thumb in the bed frame's direction. "I'm guessing the galra wouldn't have ran off with someone's mattress, either?"

His companion looks up at that, eyebrows raised. "What?" he says, _eloquently_ , while his eyes immediately swivel to where Shiro is pointing. "Uh, no."

"Thought so," Shiro says, and he tries not to let himself get too worked up over the thought of _humans_ surviving the invasion long enough to be able to scavenge for resources. Tries not to let himself hope that someone, anybody, managed to escape a lifetime of forced servitude.

But he feels lighter on his feet as he moves across the room, searching for potential resources he knows are no longer there. He thinks Keith notices, too, if only because he keeps giving him this _look_ as they work together to clear the area — one of the corners of his lips tilted up, yellow eyes looking at him with none of the harshness Shiro has become accustomed to receiving from part of the galra.

Abruptly, he realizes he no longer experiences any of the instinctual panic he first felt while looking at Keith. Rather, there's something of a comfortable warmth bubbling within his chest.

He decides he doesn't really mind that.

When they're done, Keith steps closer to the hole that has effectively replaced the wall. He leans over the edge, ignoring Shiro's strangled gasp as he wobbles precariously over it, and then has the audacity to laugh as he turns to look at his now frazzled companion. "Hey," he begins, giving him a smile that is all teeth. "Think we could land safely if we jumped down from here?"

" _No_ ," Shiro immediately snaps back, inching closer as if to physically wrangle Keith back into the middle of the room. "I think we'd just wind up hurting ourselves."

Keith hums thoughtfully, tilting his head in order to sunset. It's beautiful outside, the sky cast in pink and blue hues as darkness takes over the horizon — until one abruptly remembers the reason behind the lack of light pollution. "Alright," Keith says, after a moment's pause. "Suit yourself."

And then he's throwing himself backwards over the edge.

" _Keith!_ "

Shiro's scrambling past the debris in an instant, caring little for the way it digs painfully into his feet while he moves to look over the edge of the building. His heart is pounding, his breath caught in his throat as he questions why Keith would pull a stunt like this. Why he would put himself in harm's way, when they have a mission that is greater than either of themselves to complete. He fully expects to find Keith strewn on the ground, injured or _worse_ , but—

He doesn't.

Keith's laying on his back a couple of feet to the left of the hole, arms and legs spread as he stares up at the sky, but definitely _alive_. For a moment, it doesn't seem like he notices him. His lips are parted, a strange sort of amazement apparent on his face as he does nothing but simply breathe. Shiro feels odd while looking down at him, the rush of adrenaline leaving him feeling raw and untethered. The look of amazement on Keith's face is achingly familiar.

It's the same sort of amazement he used to wear on his own face every time he visited a planetarium as a child, delighted by the scaled models of the orrery and entranced by the supposed _astronaut food_ they used to sell in the gift shops.

(He doesn't know if Keith's ever been planetside.

During all of his time as a prisoner of the galra, he never once heard them speak of their home.)

The moment passes, and Keith's gaze is now meeting his own. He gives him a lopsided smile, yellow eyes filled with more life than Shiro has ever seen in them before. "Hi," he breathes out, just barely audible to Shiro's ears. "I didn't end up hurting myself, after all."

Shiro sucks in a breath, only barely resisting the urge to go down there and shake Keith by the shoulders. But, well — only because that would mean having to jump off the edge himself. "What were you _thinking_?"

Keith's smile fades just the slightest bit as he pushes himself up into a sitting position, craning his neck up so they can still see each other's faces. They stare at each other for a moment, Keith furrowing his brows in response to Shiro's sudden bout of anger. It's almost as if he doesn't get where it's coming from.

Until he suddenly does.

"I'm sorry," he blurts out, the smile now completely gone from his lips. If Shiro feels a twinge of regret, he pointedly ignores it. His anger is justified. "I didn't mean to make you worried."

"Well," Shiro retorts, already feeling a tension headache forming. Now that the adrenaline has slowly begun to drain from his body, he feels horrendously weary. "You did. I said you could have hurt yourself, so why did you do it?"

Keith offers him little more than a one armed shrug. "It's been a while since I've done anything like that."

Abruptly, Shiro becomes keenly aware that he is an ass.

(Though Keith never shows it, speaks little of his own experiences—

Shiro isn't the only one here who was a captive of the galra.)

Straightening his posture, he reaches up to massage the bridge of his nose.

He feels so _tired_.

"Keith," he calls out, his tone softer than before. "Come back inside. We should set up camp here."

Keith nods, doing as he's asked.

Though they don't shy away from each other's touch, they stay relatively quiet for the remainder of their time in the house.

* * *

It takes a near encounter with the galra before anything significant happens.

( _He doesn't know how they snuck up on them._

_He doesn't know where they messed up._

_But he does know he immediately recognized the sound of a charging blaster._

_He had sprung to his feet in less than a second, shoving his friend out of the way and taking the shot that was meant for him.  Everything after that is a blur, rivulets of blood running down his leg as Keith had slung him over his shoulder, absconding while muttering incoherent pleas into Shiro's ear._

"Don't die, Shiro," _he had said, voice thick with panic._ "Hang on for me."

_The injury had looked and felt worse than it actually was._

_But even through the haze of pain, Shiro remembers looking at Keith's face and feeling so, so very lucky to have met him._ )

They're huddled together in a cave, Keith helping Shiro tend to the injury on his hip. A stray shot from a blaster had nicked him on the side after they had been spotted scavenging from one of the small, abandoned towns in the area. The more they explore, the more sure Shiro becomes that they're somewhere near the Garrison — but it's been so long since the last time he was on Earth, that trying to pinpoint their exact location feels a little like trying to see through a block of styrofoam.

So far, they haven't found any clues regarding the Blue Lion's location. Keith sometimes quietly theorizes that it may be somewhere close to its element, whatever _that_ means, and that the galra probably know this as well. When Shiro asks his friend to elaborate, the explanation he receives in return is so abridged that he doesn't dare ask for additional information.

Keith finishes applying the bandages to Shiro's injury, frowning at how tattered they've become but having no option but to reuse them.

"Sorry," Shiro apologizes, not for the first time.

"Stop that," Keith insists, also not for the first time. He gives the bandages one final tug, making sure they're secured, before tucking himself at Shiro's side. "It's my fault you got shot in the first place. I should have been paying more attention to our surroundings."

The relationship they've built, Shiro realizes, is odd. It's not quite codependency, _no_ , but he's keenly aware that most people wouldn't slot themselves against one another so freely. Keith's body is warm against his own, his steady breathing like a balm for his frazzled nerves. His side aches with a dull pain, but he's still able to relax enough to allow himself to lean against his friend's shoulder.

"We could cover more ground if I wasn't injured," he retorts, but it sounds weak even to his own ears. A warm sensation spreads through his body, settling into his neck and cheeks, and not wholly unpleasant.

Keith sighs, shifting to better accommodate Shiro's body against his own. They're both going to be sweaty (well, sweat _ier_ ) by the time night rolls around, the sun still shining outside of the confines of their makeshift shelter, but neither of them can bring themselves to care. "Go to sleep, Shiro," Keith tells him, with a gentleness he has come to know and appreciate. "I'll wake you up if something happens."

Shiro tries to argue against it. Makes a valiant effort to insist he can stay asleep, but. _Well_. He ends up passed out at Keith's side, anyway.

(In his dreams, he sees his grandfather.

They're both seated at the rickety, old dining room table that used to wobble precariously every time someone did so much as to _look_ at it. Shiro remembers adding a new water bottle cap under the legs every other week, trying and failing to stabilize it. Grandfather used to laugh every time he did that, saying he would set some money aside to buy a new dining room table — but he never did.

Every dime, every dollar they could spare went into building a fund for Shiro's tuition at the Galaxy Garrison.

In the waking world, Shiro knows this table no longer exists. He knows his grandfather now rests within an urn — or _did_ , up until Shiro left on his mission to Kerberos. But, this is not the waking world. His unconscious mind replicates, nonsensically, the apartment they used to live in when Shiro was scarcely 14-years-old, all while placing his current, adult self right across from his deceased grandfather.

In this dream, he watches as the old man reaches across the table to lay his hand over Shiro's own. "Did you get to see the moon, Takashi?"

Shiro grins from cheek to cheek, a laugh bubbling in his throat. "Yeah," he responds, feeling so overwhelmingly light. "And I met someone new, Grandpa. He's pretty cool."

His grandfather laughs back at him, giving his hand a squeeze before pulling back. "I'm glad to hear that," he says, and then—

_"Did you feel that, Shiro?"_

That's not his grandfather's voice.)

He wakes up with a start, his eyes snapping open as he sucks in a sharp breath. For a moment, he doesn't know where he is. He doesn't remember if he's laying on the bitingly cold surface of a gurney, or somewhere else entirely. All he knows is that he feels someone's hand on his shoulder, and in his disoriented state, he struggles to push them away from him.

The hand lets go, as if burned.

Someone's face hovers above his own, so very familiar.

Suddenly, it all comes back to him.

"—Keith?"

Crouched down in front of him, Keith lets out a sigh of relief. He leans back, dragging a hand down his own face as he somehow manages to retain his balance despite his current position. "Sorry," he says, a weird echo of their conversation from earlier ago. Shiro isn't sure how long he's been asleep, but there's still a faint glimmer of sunshine seeping into the cave. "I didn't mean to wake you up like that."

It takes a moment for Shiro to steady his breathing, to remind himself that he's no longer aboard the battlecruiser. He succeeds, though it does nothing to lower his growing sense of unease. "What's wrong?" he asks, knowing Keith wouldn't wake him up at _all_ unless it meant something serious. "Are the galra nearby?"

"No," Keith responds, shaking his head. "But... It's just..." There's a certain tightness to his tone as he trails off, his expression pinched to accompany it. Though Keith claims the galra have yet to find them, it does little to reassure him.

"Keith," Shiro repeats, reaching forward to place his hand on his friend's shoulder. Keith stares at him with wide eyes, blinking owlishly as Shiro gives him what's meant to be a comforting squeeze. This would, perhaps, be more poignant if they both weren't gritty and sticky with several week's worth of sweat and grime. "If there's anything that's worrying you," he tells him, "I need to know."

"I..." Keith mumbles, his voice barely above a whisper as he trails off again. It takes him a moment, his eyes darting from Shiro's face to the trail that leads to the cave entrance, before he sucks in a breath — and exhales it in quick succession. "Can't you feel that?"

Shiro raises an eyebrow. He wants to _get it_. He wants to be understanding of what's bothering his friend, but it's a little easier said than done when he's met with a statement like that. "What?"

He watches as Keith's eyebrows knit together, his lips pressed into a fine line. He's come to recognize this as a look of frustration; a sign that Keith desperately wants to achieve something, but it keeps slipping out of his grasp. It's a look Shiro frequently bears witness to, as they fail time and time again to locate the Blue Lion.

" _That_ ," Keith repeats, nonsensically. "There's this— This energy. It's like something's pulling me in one direction. Can't you feel it?"

Well, no. Shiro's pretty sure he would know if he was feeling something like _that._ It has the _je ne sais quoi_ attribute of something good spurring one forward, or something very, _very_  bad messing with one's synapses. He tries to ignore the sudden tightness in his chest, like someone's punched him in the sternum. "What do you think it is?"

"I... I don't know," Keith says, faltering on each syllable. "I don't know how to explain it, but... I feel like we should follow it. Like it'll help us find the Blue Lion."

"Keith," Shiro says, carefully measuring his words. "Are you sure we can trust this?"

But Keith doesn't confirm or deny. Instead, he meets Shiro's gaze and says: "You don't have to come with me. You can stay here, and I'll come back to you. I promise."

This isn't how most people feel about someone they barely know, Shiro reminds himself.

It does nothing to stop the sudden dryness of his throat. It does nothing to abate the sensation of cotton in his ears, every sound around him becoming muffled and distant. He shakes his head, squeezing Keith's shoulder like it's suddenly become a lifeline.  "I'm not letting you go anywhere by yourself," he tells him, meaning every single word that slips past his tongue and comes out of his mouth. "We're in this together, alright?"

(What he doesn't say is this:

_"I can't imagine a world where we're apart."_

Or, maybe, it's because he hasn't realized it himself.

 _Maybe_ , he's aware that things are moving too fast. That Keith's own feelings on the situation may be entirely different, and Shiro's the only one who—)

Keith is so, so very still beneath his touch. He does not breathe. He does not move. He only stares at him, lips parted as if someone has delivered the most shocking news upon him — before he lets out a small exhale of breath. "Alright," he echoes, voice small. His relief is palpable. "Okay."

* * *

They follow the mysterious energy as far as it takes them.

(Or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that _Keith_ followed the mysterious energy, while Shiro followed him in turn.)

It's not a short stroll across the desert by any means. The injury on Shiro's hip makes it so every step they take feels more like a mile. Guilt creeps up on him, making him feel like he should apologize to Keith for slowing him down — but the alternative is far too repugnant to consider. The alternative would mean leaving Keith to explore the desert on his own, stranded in unfamiliar territory while surrounded by hostile entities.  The idea is terrifying enough that he smothers it instantly.

They travel for three days, guided by nothing but Keith's intuition and the mysterious energy beckoning for him. It's almost time for them to turn in when Keith abruptly stops, nearly causing Shiro to bowl him over.

"Keith?" he asks, tentatively.

But his friend isn't looking at him. He's turned on his heel, facing an outcropping of boulders with narrowed eyes. "There," he states, without any further elaboration.

"There?" Shiro prompts, though he has an idea of what Keith means.

Their trip hasn't been for nothing, after all.

"The... energy source," Keith offers. "It's _there_. Somewhere. I can feel it."

The boulders, as they discover, are covered in _caves_. Some are interconnected. Others are more of a (literal) hole in the wall. Keith helps Shiro up when his injury prevents him from scaling a rocky surface, and they stick close to each other as they slowly, but surely explore the mystery that has been laid out before them.

* * *

Their breakthrough comes a while later.

The opening to this particular cave lays hidden in a cranny. Shiro has to squint to be able to see it. Beside him, Keith lets out an unsteady breath, a minute trembling to his limbs that Shiro can only barely detect. He lays a hand on Keith's shoulder, tugging him forward so they're both face to face.

"Hold on," he says, tone laced with a gentleness he was afraid the arena had stolen from him.  It's a gentleness that only Keith seems capable of drawing out. "Are you okay?"

For a moment, it feels like the other man is seconds away from pulling out of his grasp. There's a subtle tension forming in his shoulders, his stance shifting ever-so-slightly as if to run off in direction of the cave — but he remains. Steadying his breathing, Keith meets his eyes. "Yeah," he says, and there is something of a smile forming on his lips. "I think we're close."

But they aren't simply _close_.

They're right on the money.

The cave walls are littered with ancient markings. Shiro feels his eyes widen as he takes it all in, examining the figures carved onto the walls. He raises his right hand, synthetic fingers tracing the patterns as he tries to make sense out of all of them. There are humanoid figures, their arms stretched upwards as they stand before a lion that's easily three times their size. A circle has been carved in the space above them, triangular patterns decorating the edges. The more Shiro looks around the cave, the more of these carvings he spots.

_They're everywhere._

He finds Keith crouched low on the ground, his hands pressed against the cave's floor with his eyes squeezed shut. Shiro only manages to take one step forward, his mouth opening with the intention of speaking up, before Keith beats him to the punch. "It's here," he says slowly, his voice pitched slow. Shiro watches him trace circles on the ground, revealing more of the ancient markings. "The Blue Lion's here, Shiro. I can feel it."

Shiro reminds himself to breathe. The cave, he thinks, continues further than what he can see at the moment. He knows Keith has something akin to a flashlight in that fanny pack of his, which solves _one_ of their problems. The other, however, continues to throb painfully against his hip bone as if to remind Shiro of its existence.

But Keith shakes his head, digging his nails into the cave floor. "It's not _that_ way," he adds, startling Shiro out of his thoughts. "It's below us. Underground."

He isn't isn't looking at him. His eyes are still closed.

Shiro never said anything.

"... Keith?"

Growling in frustration, Keith fails to respond. Or rather, he fails to respond to _him_. Shiro gets the feeling he never heard him, his awareness of the world narrowed down to only what's in front of him. It's not the first time this has happened, but it certainly is the most stressful incident. "It's right here, Shiro!" he insists, with building frustration. "It's right _here,_ but it won't let us in. It says— It says..."

There's silence. Shiro holds his own breath. Somewhere in the distance, too far away to be of great concern, he thinks he can hear the telltale whirring of alien machinery.

And then, Keith opens his eyes.

"... It says we're not the right ones," his companion breathes. " _I'm_ not the right one."

Reaching out with his left arm, Shiro steps closer to him. "Hey..." he begins, softly, as if afraid to further upset him. "We'll figure it out. We're in this together, remember?"

Keith's face is turned away from him, though, his fists pressed against the ground. Shiro crouches down beside him, his hand brushing against his shoulder—

"It's because of _me._ "

And the next thing he knows, Keith has sprung back up to his feet. Yellow eyes stare down at Shiro, pupils dilated as their owner takes a step back, further away from his reach. "I need to..." he begins, agitated. "I need to go. I'm sorry, Shiro."

Even when he gives chase, forcing his left leg to move as quickly as possible, Shiro reaches the cave entrance too late.

Keith is gone.

Overhead, the red lights of a scouting fighter flash, illuminating the area around the small cranny. Shiro presses himself against the cave wall, holding his breath, and waits for the ship to pass. By the time it is gone, however, he knows he's lost any chance of locating his only surviving ally.

Though he tries, he doesn't find Keith.

* * *

Shiro has been stuck vacillating between grogginess and hypervigilance since his friend's departure. Without their previously established _system_ , gathering resources and conserving his energies becomes something of an olympic feat. Add to that the fact that he can't seem to sleep for more than an hour at a time, too paranoid of being discovered and too fearful for Keith's safety, and one has the recipe for a very strung out, very weary man.

He spends the daylight hours delving further into the cave, investigating every crook and cranny and memorizing the details as best as he can, for a lack of another way to record his findings.

Not that there is much to be found, anyway.

Similar to the area adjacent to the entrance, the parts he manages to explore on his own are covered in carvings depicting some sort of lion-shaped deity. Humanoid figures bow before it. In some of the ancient markings, a colossal, horned entity lurks in the background. There's a niggling feeling in the back of Shiro's skull that makes him think he should know what it's meant to represent, even though he very clearly does not. His best guesses lay somewhere between a seven meter tall demon, and the lovechild between a bear and an antelope.

In other words: neither of those guesses are correct.

The makeshift torches he creates provide adequate illumination to explore the further regions of the cave, but not much. It's a lesson well learned when he finds himself almost falling down a ditch, his only saving grace being the fact his prosthetic is, apparently, very much capable of clawing its way through stone. He remembers feeling his heart hammering in his throat, his breathing ragged as he dangled precariously over the edge, his hand encrusted in the rocky surface and keeping him from falling all the way down. Everything from his hip to the tip of his toes had ached for days upon days, reminding him to take it easy until he makes _some_ sort of breakthrough.

It's easier said than done, however.

Without Keith, he finds himself wavering. Keith was the one who felt the lion call out to him, drawing the two of them to this spot. Keith was the one with the information regarding what they were dealing with. And while Shiro has no intention of laying down and waiting for death to claim him, it's somewhat discouraging to find himself alone in the desert. He feels lost. Adrift. Living life day to day, without none of the torture he received from the galra but with all the uncertainty he faced while held prisoner.

He could, theoretically, set out to find more humans. It's quite possible that the ones who scavenged the house for supplies are still quite there, but even if he did — he has no idea how to go on about it. He doesn't even know if the humans he may find would be friendly or hostile. There are far too many horror stories of people turning against one another during times of crisis, catastrophes driving them driving them to take drastic actions. Even so, the possibility of finding other human beings is hard to resist. It's been far too long since he's seen another of his kind; someone without any fangs, without yellow sclera or additional limbs.

But something keeps him from straying too far from the cave.

It's probably the knowledge that, should he not be here to protect the Blue Lion, the galra may very well find it.

(— _The hope that Keith may come back to him._ )

The days pass by, each and every one of them becoming a blur as he focuses on his continued survival, until one day — someone enters the cave.

He's immediately on his feet, his body moving on its own before his brain can even catch up with what's happening. He is a being of pure instinct, nerves taunt after being forced to fight for his life time and time again. His arm activates of its own accord, reacting to the perceived danger while his immediate surroundings are cast in a purple hue. He stops short of plunging his hand through the intruder's throat, his fingertips centimeters away from delicate, supple flesh.

Keith stares back at him, his feet rooted to the spot.

"I guess," his wayward companion says, his breath fanning against Shiro's hand as artificial nerves register the sensation. "This makes us even."

Shiro pulls him into an embrace a second later, prosthetic arm deactivating as he presses Keith against his own chest.

Keith is rigid against his body, arms hovering uncertainly for a moment before they wrap themselves around Shiro's back. He can feel the exact moment his friend nuzzles his face against the crook of Shiro's neck, his breathing warm even as the tip of his nose feels cold against his skin. If his own cheeks feel warmer, he passes it off as a side effect of the exhilaration that fills his heart. One of his hands slides upward, towards Keith's nape, and he buries his fingers in his hair. It's greasy and disgusting to the touch, but he can hardly bring himself to care at the moment.

" _Keith_ ," he breathes out, almost as if to assure himself that this is real. That this isn't a hallucination, product of his own delirious mind.

He feels Keith shift against him, leaning further into his touch. Something akin to a pleased sigh passes through his lips. "I'm sorry," he mumbles, "I messed up."

"But you came back," Shiro reminds him, tracing circles onto his back. "How did you know I'd still be here?"

Pulling away, Keith shakes his head at him. His arms are still loosely looped around Shiro's back, only barely hanging on by the fingertips. "I didn't," he admits, sounding so painfully guilty at that moment. "I just hoped... you know."

Shiro nods. His hand moves from its position on the back of Keith's head, tracing the curve of his ear, his jawline — and settling on his cheek. "I wasn't sure if I'd ever see you again," he tells him, and his heart aches at the thought of Keith coming back and not finding him. "But I stayed. I couldn't leave this place unprotected."

"Thank you," Keith responds, and in the same breath, "You didn't deserve to be alone."

They stay like that for a moment, Keith arm's slung around his torso while Shiro's hand rests on his cheek. Keith's lips are parted, dry and chapped but no less attractive. Shiro isn't terribly surprised at his own thoughts when he finds himself taking in his supposed _friend's_ features, Keith's eyes set firmly on his own face.

He isn't terribly surprised, either, when they end up pressed against each other, desperate and lonely as they kiss.

* * *

Later on, Keith is leaning against his uninjured side as they huddle close to the bonfire. The desert nights are frigid, capable of putting an end to anyone if they're reckless, but they're easier when one finds good company.

"I owe you an explanation," Keith says, breaking the silence. His lips look a little bit plumper now, a little bit more bruised, and Shiro can't find it within himself to be nearly as embarrassed as he should be. Everything his grandfather taught him about decorum has gone down the proverbial drain.

"An explanation would be nice," Shiro agrees, but there's no real strength behind his words. "You had me pretty worried there, you know."

His partner (in more ways than one) nuzzles closer to him, absentmindedly picking at his clawed fingernails. A nervous gesture. "I heard the lion talk to me," he tells him, pausing for a second before shaking his head. "Well— No. Talking isn't right. It was like... it was showing me images right in my head."

Everything that Keith is telling him sounds fantastical; almost as if it's been drawn out of a fantasy novel. In another time and another place, Shiro wouldn't have believed any of it. He would have brushed it off as absurdities. But that Shiro is long gone, and the one currently canoodling while covered in sweat, grime and dirt has spent too much time as a prisoner of a hostile alien race. "Alright," he responds, trying to encourage him to talk. "What did it show you?"

Keith is quiet, flexing and unflexing his fingers. "It showed me," he says, enunciating each word carefully. "That I'm not the one it wants."

There is a beat.

And another.

 _And another_ —

Until Shiro's synapses fire successfully, neurons passing chemical signals to one another while he scrambles for a way to react to that. In the end, all he can utter is a confused, uncomprehending: "What?"

It's (unsurprisingly) not the right thing to say. If anything, it makes him more upset. He chokes out a bitter laugh, hands curling into fists. Shiro reaches for them, attempting to coax them into relaxation before his claws can puncture through thin flesh. "Voltron needs five pilots, and I'm not the one the lion wants," he laughs, as if he was telling some sort of joke. "There's a _monster_ trying to take over the universe, and it wants to be picky! It told me _I'm_ not the one for the job, but— hey! It's not like I ever _am_."

"Keith... I..." Shiro fumbles, grasping for something to say. He opts for rubbing his thumb against his hand in what he hopes comes across as a comforting gesture.

It turns out to be super ineffective.

Keith rips out of his grasp, pulling away from him with clenched fists. His pupils are dilated, something wet and bright gathering at the corners of his eyes. "The universe's most powerful weapon is right under us, Shiro," he stresses, "And we can't get to it because it doesn't want _me_."

"It's not your fault," Shiro tries again, brows furrowing. "We can figure this out together."

"Yes," he replies, "it is. Do you want to know how I got captured by the galra?"

The word _no_ is on the tip of his tongue, followed by _it doesn't matter —_ but he doesn't get much of an opportunity to speak. Not when Keith is already pressing on, spiraling downward on his own.

"I went on a mission I wasn't supposed to be on," he spits out, gesticulating wildly. "The leader said I wasn't ready, but I thought I was. I _knew_ I was, but— They caught me. They interrogated me, and—"

Shiro doesn't allow him to continue down that line of thought. He reaches for him, grasping at his wrist and gently pulling him back towards him. Keith is shaking now, from anger or fear or _both_. Shiro doesn't know, and it's not like Keith is in any position to dissect his own feelings. He holds him for a while, Keith's chest rapidly rising and falling with rushed, shallow breaths. When it seems like he will no longer continue with his sordid tale, however, he proceeds to defy all expectations.

"No one came looking for me," he says, and he sounds so, so very young. "I didn't expect them to, but... I thought I could make up for it. I thought... if I kept Zarkon away from Voltron, it'd make up for my mistake." Shiro _feels_ more than he sees him shrug, his body a dead weight against his own.

He understands the sentiment all too well.

But there's something that strikes him as odd. Something he should have put more thought into before, but never got around to questioning.

"Keith," he begins, brushing a stray strand of hair away from the other man's face, watching as those yellow eyes rise up to meet his own. "How did you escape?"

"I don't know," Keith confesses, quietly. "I woke up and found my stuff inside the cell. The door was open."

Shiro pauses. Thinks. Connects the dots. _Finally_ receives the epiphany he should have had ages ago.

"Do you know a man named Ulaz?"

Keith blinks up at him, no longer as much of a dead weight as he is a subtle pressure by Shiro's side. He straightens his posture, just enough that they can properly look at each other without having to crane their heads in any direction. The crick in Shiro's neck is infinitely thankful. "How do you know that name?"

"He was the one who helped me get out," he tells him, a smile tugging at his lips. "And I think he might have done the same for you, too."

* * *

They travel further into the desert the following day, wary of the elements (and the obvious alien invaders) but in desperate need to replenish their supplies. They explore the area surrounding the outcropping, examining the landscape to determine which direction they originally came from before heading the opposite way. It's _nice_ , Shiro thinks, to have someone to tough it out with while trying to survive under these circumstances.

But he knows that isn't the only reason he enjoys Keith's company.

(Not anymore, at least.)

It's approaching sundown when they stumble across the first thing that may be of relative value to them.

A shack, smackdab in the middle of nowhere.

It's a small thing. Barely enough to fit three rooms judging by its size from the outside. Both of them share a look as they first lay their eyes on it, almost as if wanting to confirm they're both seeing the same thing, before they warily approach. The shack, they find, is in good conditions. It hasn't been taken over by the elements. There isn't a buildup of sand on its front porch. The tree that stands behind it even seems to be thriving, providing ample shade for anyone looking to spend some time outside.

It's as if someone has been here recently.

Cautious of any potential traps, they make their way up the two steps and onto the front porch. The rocking chair next to the door seesaws when Shiro accidentally bumps into it, creaking as it moves back and forth. Keith stares at it like he's unsure if it's meant to do that, or if it's biding its time before it springs to life to eat them. The sight is so hilarious, Shiro finds himself stifling his laughter to avoid alerting anyone who may happen to be close by of their approach.

"Shut up," Keith hisses under his breath, elbowing him in the stomach with mock anger.

Trying to scope the place out by looking through the windows turns out to be pointless. White curtains block the way, serving to prevent the daylight from filtering into the house — but also making it downright impossible for them to verify if anyone's inside or not. They opt for pressing their ears against the wood, hoping the walls are thin enough that _something_ would be audible, but. Well. The results are more or less the same.

If things go downhill, they can always fight their way out.

Reaching for the doorknob, they brace themselves before pulling the door open.

What greets them is a mess.

Papers, books and notepads are haphazardly strewn everywhere. There are rusty, old cabinets pushed to the corners of the room, one of the drawers pulled open to reveal even _more_ documents. A couch rests against the wall with the window, a pillow and a sheet on top of it — as well as several discarded pens and pencils. On the wall adjacent to the window they find something that resembles a conspiracy theory board, which would be absolutely hilarious if not for the fact that aliens have, indeed, invaded Earth. There are strange graphs pinned to it, along with wrinkled sheets of lined paper and sticky notes with three different sets of handwriting.

A single mattress lays on the ground, twin sized.

It somehow manages to be the most startling part of the scene before him.

"Someone lives here," he finds himself saying, pointing out the obvious.

Keith nods at his statement, pushing past him to step further into the room. When he notices Shiro isn't following him, he turns around to cast him a curious look. "What's the matter?"

Shiro wonders if the galra have any laws about trespassing.

This train of thought lasts all of two seconds, right up until he remembers the fact they consider _everything_ to be a grievous offenses — so. Yes. Probably. Most likely.

"We can't just go through people's stuff, Keith," he responds, even as his feet carry him across the room.

"Why not?" Keith asks, without a hint of shame. "They left the door wide open." He makes a beeline for the cabinet, rummaging through it and pulling out the first notebook his hands land on. He flips it open to a random page, expression pinching as he lays his eyes on its contents.

"That doesn't mean it was an invitation," he sighs, fully aware that his arguments are pretty invalid when he, himself, participates in that which he's criticizing. He raises an eyebrow when he notices what Keith is doing, however, inching closer to look over his shoulder.

_Still looking for you._

The notebook says, and right under it—

_Hope the kid isn't giving you much trouble._

Shiro pauses, watching the way Keith runs his index finger over the page. The ink is fading, the pages yellowed with time. The edges audibly crinkle when Keith presses his finger against them.

"Do you understand what it says?"

Keith nods, slowly. "... Most of it," he says, and then he's glancing up at him. "This is Earth's language?"

"One of them," he replies, wholly unsure of what to make out of the fact that Keith apparently knows how to read English. "You've seen it before?"

"Yeah," he begins, "My, uh... My mother—"

He doesn't really get to finish.

The door is slamming open, someone bursting in with the most ridiculous battle cry to have ever graced Shiro's ears.

There isn't enough time for him to turn around because Keith is shoving him to the side, darting past him with a glint of silver metal in his hands. A moment later, something heavy (some _one_ ) is thrown against the floor. By the time Shiro can regain his balance, one of his hands pressed to the wall to keep himself from collapsing over the ressurging weakness in his left leg, Keith has already pinned down their sudden visitor. One of his knees is digging into the person's back, their head pulled back as Keith yanks them upwards by the hair, exposing their throat so he can hold the knife against their neck. A rusty metal pipe lays a couple feet away from the two of them, presumably having rolled away from their unwanted guest once they were tackled to the ground.

Additional voices join the fray from beyond the doorway, both of them equally as shocked and alarmed.

_"Lance!"_

_"Oh, no! Ooooooh, no!"_

Shiro makes the executive decision to put himself between Keith and the two standing at the entrance. Not because he feels any sort of concern that they may hurt Keith, but because he's worried _Keith_ might hurt _them_.

They're just teenagers, in the end.

"Keith!" he barks out, watching as his head snaps up to attention. "Put the knife away _now_! They're not here to hurt us!"

Predictably, Keith doesn't look the slightest bit convinced. He narrows his eyes, yanking on the teenager's hair as the boy yelps. "Are you kidding?" he says, inclining his head towards the discarded pipe on the floor. "He came at us with a weapon!"

"Only because you broke into our house first!" one of the teens steps forward, small and young and dirty and eerily identical to _Katie Holt_. It takes Shiro a whole second to understand the fact that he is, indeed, staring at a member of the Holt family and not suffering from a vivid hallucination.

The teenager currently being pinned down on the ground, _Lance_ , raises his head as far as he dares to — with the knife currently pressed against his neck and all. "Yeah! You tell them, Pidge!"

But Keith isn't having any of that, digging his knee further into Lance's back with gusto. "Quiet! Tell your friends to step away from Shiro, or else!"

The larger teen inches back, covering his mouth with his hands as he nervously glances between his friends and the alien currently making death threats at him. Katie, however, stays right where she is, her eyes widening almost comically.

"Keith, _this isn't necessary_ ," Shiro grits out.

At the same time, Katie Holt sucks in a sharp breath. " _You're Shiro?!_ " she yelps, looking at him. "You're the pilot of the Kerberos mission?!"

The big guy squawks, giving Shiro a double look. " _What?_ "

"Wait—" Lance squeaks out, despite the very real, very sharp knife pressed to his throat. " _That_ Shiro?!"

Shiro doesn't know how to react to, well — all of these reactions. Keith even less so, judging by the flabbergasted look he shoots his way.

"You're, uh... famous," Keith says, sounding just the slightest bit lost. He looks a little bit like he's missed out on a punchline, and no one wants to let him in on the joke.

For all intents and purposes, that's close enough.

He can do little more than offer his companion a shrug, unsure of how to deal with the sudden attention. Either way, he steps closer to Keith, reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder. "Alright, everyone," he begins, keeping his tone level. "Let's calm down. We can sort this out without resorting to violence. Isn't that right, Keith?"

Suddenly feeling called out, Keith begins to grumble under his breath. The knife is removed from Lance's throat, shoved back into its respective spot at Keith's hip. At the same time, Lance sucks in one large, relieved gulp of air. He scrambles to his feet the moment Keith removes himself from him, the big guy all but scooping him up in his arms as he retreats towards the exit.

Shiro casts a look at the people around him. He sees the petulant, mistrustful expression on Keith's face, his lips puckered into a pout. He sees the fear in Lance's eyes, his friend all but crushing him against his chest as he mirrors his expression. He sees and _feels_ Katie Holt size him up, her eyes narrowed as she studies him much like one would a science experiment. He tries to pretend he's not uncomfortable under her gaze, and more or less succeeds.

"Let's start over," he says, after a moment, slinging an arm over Keith's shoulders. "My name is Shiro, and this is Keith."

No one speaks. The silence is so thick you can cut it with a knife. Beside him, Keith is ready to spring forward at a moment's notice.

Shiro smiles despite himself, and adds:

"We come in peace."

* * *

The three humans, as it turns out, are former Galaxy Garrison students.

The only reason they aren't prisoners at this moment is because they were too busy playing hooky instead of attending their classes.

Hunk, as the tallest of the bunch introduces himself, lavishes them with a ridiculously detailed, anxiety inducing retelling of how it all went down. Lance interjects frequently, ready to elaborate ( _exaggerate_ ) certain details as he deems necessary. Katie only interrupts every now and then, offering additional information regarding something neither Hunk nor Lance noticed, or enthusiastically agreeing when some scientific fact or theory is brought up. Though the three of them are nice, seemingly happy to meet yet another human being in this wasteland, Shiro can't help but to notice how shaken up they seem.

He also can't help but to notice the suspicious glances they keep shooting Keith's way. Hunk makes an effort to disguise them. But the other two — not so much.

"So... How'd you end up traveling together?" Hunk drawls, eyes darting between Shiro and Keith. "I mean, you're human. And he's, uh, y'know— _purple_."

Keith scoffs at that, arms crossed in front of his chest and shoulders hunched up as far as they go. "Just say it. I'm _galra_."

"H-Hey, it's not a bad thing!" Hunk quickly responds, trying to salvage this _second_ first impression. "You're purple! That's— That's pretty cool, right?"

Lance doesn't seem to care very much about staying in Keith's good graces, though, because he shoots his friend an incredulous look. "You're kidding, Hunk. There's nothing cool about being purple!" he says, gesticulating wildly in Keith's general direction. " _Look at him!_ He's probably plotting how to kill us right now!"

Katie, bless her heart, proceeds to jab her elbow against Lance's side. It's a critical hit. He goes down like a sack of potatoes, doubling over with a strangled whine that sounds suspiciously like a cross between _Pidge_ and _traitor_.

"Quiet!" she hisses out, jutting her chin up and looking at Shiro straight in the eye. Her gaze softens just the slightest bit as she leans forward, sitting practically at the edge of the dingy couch the three of them have squeezed themselves into.  "Did anyone else from your crew make it out?"

The twin sized mattress is lumpy and uncomfortable.  The springs dig into his butt. He's keenly aware of the way the metal squeak as he shifts, trying to make himself more comfortable while delivering the world's most unfortunate news to a teenage girl who has, more likely than not, lost her entire family.  "I'm not sure," he replies, only daring to meet her gaze for a second before looking away.  "We were captured together. But after that... we ended up getting separated."

"Yeah, okay, sorry to interrupt," Hunk cuts in, exuding anxiety from every pore in his body. "But back to my question. How'd you guys get out? 'Cause, you know, that sounds a little hard with being up in space and all."

Shiro doesn't get a chance to answer.  Keith interjects before he can even open his mouth, enacting the verbal equivalent of bowling him over.  "We got help from a friend," he says, fully aware of how vague and unhelpful his answer is.  "And now we're looking for something called Voltron.  Do you know what it is?"

Shiro refrains from pointing out the fact that they have, technically, already found a piece Voltron.

"—Wait," Lance suddenly says, having apparently risen from the dead. "Did you say _Voltron_?"

The conversation descends into chaos.

"I've been picking up alien radio chatter for _months_ ," Katie tells them, having slid off the couch at some point in order to sit on the floor, surrounded by every single note she's taken since holing up in the shack. "They keep repeating one word: _Voltron_. We don't know what it is, but they're looking for it like crazy. Lakes, rivers, the sea — you name a body of water, and they're there."

"They keep repeating this series of numbers, too," Hunk points out. "I noticed it looks a _lot_ like a Fraunhofer line."

Shiro has no idea who Fraunhofer is _or_ what his lines do.

Apparently, neither does Keith, judging by the blank look on his face.  That one, though, is neither unsurprising nor inexcusable.  Keith's an alien. Shiro, on the other hand, sat through several years of STEM requirements during his time as a cadet. "Frown... who?" Keith asks, not even bothering to attempt to pronounce the name past the first syllable.

" _Fraunhofer,_ " Lance corrects, tone akin to one a parent would use when explaining the facts of life to a particularly misbehaved child.  "It's a graph that shows how radioactive an element is or whatever," he explains, completely and utterly ignoring Hunk's protests as he probably proceeds to mangle the concept beyond recognition.  "He made a bunch of them to try and figure out what the galra are after.  Look."

Lance lifts one of his hands up, pointing at the conspiracy theory board both of them had noticed while entering the shack.  Keith frowns, pushing himself up to his feet and making his way over to it.

After a beat, he unceremoniously rips one of the graphs off the wall.

"Hey!" Katie yells, jerking up in her current position on the floor. "Be careful with that, man!"

Keith gives her an unimpressed look, holding the sheet of paper up between his thumb and index finger.  "You made these?"

Lance nudges his friend with his elbow, grinning like a doting mother. " _Hunk_ made them.  He's the brains of this operation," he says. "I'm the brawn _and_ the beauty."

Katie and Hunk make zero efforts to disguise their snickering, prompting a look of sheer indignation from their friend.  As if to rub salt onto his wounded ego, Keith cocks an eyebrow, deadpanning: "You're neither of those things."

The snickering goes from _acceptably quiet_ to full blown laughter.  Shiro would not blame Lance if he decided to end this friendship right there and then. But, then again, he _did_ kind of bring this upon himself.  Shiro's not so above it all to be unable to recognize what was wrong with Lance's statement.

Keith quietly pads across the room, plopping down on the spot next to Shiro.  He has enough decorum to keep a distance of five inches between their bodies, as opposed to splaying himself all over him as has become the usual.  "Shiro, look," he tells him, holding up the graph for him to see. "What does this remind you of?"

For the life of him, he cannot figure out what Keith is trying to convey to him.  All he sees is a piece of paper filled with scribbles; dots and lines, dipping down and rising up in seemingly random intervals.  It takes a full three seconds for Keith to tire of this nonsense.  That is a whole three seconds more than usual.

"It's the outcropping," he points out, _weary_.

"—What outcropping?" Katie pipes up, her attention once again drawn away from her friend (thankfully for Lance) and towards them.

"There's this outcropping of giant boulders nearby," Shiro offers, as if he totally understood what Keith was trying to show him seconds ago. "It has these caves covered in ancient markings."

"Seriously?" Lance replies, bouncing back from his friends's teasing with admirable speed. "We've never found anything like that. Where are they?"

"Nearby." It's Keith who responds this time, just as unhelpful as his earlier interjection.  When Shiro turns to look at him, he finds his gaze is distant; his mind is miles away from the shack.  "You should come see it with us tomorrow."

There's a pause here.  The former cadets all glance at each other, uncertainty clear in their expressions.  There is a silent conversation among them, some quiet agreement taking place — because a moment later, they all nod.

"Okay," Katie says. "It's not like we have anything better to do."

* * *

Later, Shiro corners him in the hastily refurbished storage space that passes for a bathroom.  The shack, as they've discovered, comes with its own electrical generator and underground cistern.  Neither of them ever run out of fuel or water, and though the cadets explain they don't really get _how_ , they're not about to tinker with the stuff in fear that it'll break and leave them without resources.  It's a blessing, considering how long Shiro's gone without proper hygiene — so he opts not to look a gift horse in the mouth, simply rolling with it.

Keith looks up at him as he approaches, folding the sleeves on the brown jacket Hunk had dug up for him.  While the musty old clothes they had found inside the shack were a relatively good fit for Shiro, the same couldn't be said for his companion.  Even the pair of pants Lance grudgingly handed over to him had to be rolled up once.

"I didn't expect you to want to show them the cave," he says, without any sort of accusation in his tone.

Keith shrugs. "Didn't really expect it either, but... I have a good feeling about it," he tells him, looking up to offer him a tentative smile. "Trust me."

Shiro finds himself smiling in return, placing his hand on Keith's shoulder.

"I always do."

* * *

(The rest, as they say, is history.)

**Author's Note:**

> find me on: [tumblr](http://carcinology.tumblr.com/) • [twitter](https://twitter.com/beheads).


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